Next
by The Die Hard
Summary: 2 or 3 years from now, Clark decides what to do next. Guest starring Martian Manhunter. Lake and Nicole (Interview, Lessons) lurk in the background.


Next  
  
Clark makes a choice about what to do next.  
  
Spoilers: A few years in the future. A few of the Specials from Interview and Lessons decided to come out to play again. They've lived in my head for years, so be warned.  
  
Disclaimer: get real. If I had any rights to them, I'd cut way back on the makeup.  
  
Scene: a grassy knoll. Sorry about the pun. (Look it up.)  
  
Clark lay sprawled on his belly, chewing a stalk of grass. His first two years of college had been an eye-opener. College was nothing like high school. Being so much more on your own -- not having anyone nagging you, but not have anyone else to blame if you messed up -- was more scary than liberating. The amount of independent studying you were expected to do in addition to class lectures often made him long for the good old days of desultory homework sessions. Sometimes he thought the entire class was itself one long homework assignment.  
  
Yet there had been unexpected compensations. Not just the parties -- though college parties were far more varied and inventive than high school mixers and dances -- but the whole feeling of being out in a bigger world, where there were more choices, more resources, more, well, everything. And not just because Metropolis was a big city as compared to the aptly named Smallville. There was more energy just in the way college students thought, more questioning, more depth. The beginnings of coming up with the courage of your own convictions, instead of simply accepting and following the beliefs you had been raised with.  
  
Clark snorted and rolled over on his back. Probably every graduating sophomore in the history of higher education had come to the same realization. His dad probably even had a platitude about it. And here he was trying to come up with a new way of saying it.  
  
There was Twain's comment about how much his father had changed -- nah, that would be Jonathan's line. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.... Nah. Plagiarism had brought down way more famous journalists and politicians than he even aspired to be. And besides, Lex would consider it contemptible. And so would the man lying beside him.  
  
The man (well, Martian) next to him chuckled. "The word 'hayseed' comes to mind."  
  
"Not exactly the image I wanted to write about for describing college," Clark retorted.   
  
"I was speaking of the image you present just now. Not exactly what one expects of the most powerful person who ever existed on Earth, the old gods notwithstanding."  
  
"I'm not exactly a person," Clark mumbled, savagely ripping up another grass stalk.  
  
"Come now, Kal-El. Any sentient being is a 'person,' an individual with personality. One does not have to be homo sapiens, or even resemble such, to be a person." To prove his point, J'onn J'onzz slid his features from the disguise in which he had first met Clark -- a big man of mixed race with predominantly Native American features -- halfway to his true appearance, complete with hairless green skin and massive brows. His predator's grin was intentionally scary. "I've spent time as a gorilla, a dolphin, a wolf, a cat. Do not try to tell me that they are not sentient beings. They are, in their own way, 'people,' near enough to our own kind -- yours and mine both -- to relate to us, even communicate with us, if they so choose."   
  
J'onn let the disguise slip entirely, becoming something that couldn't pass for human on a dark night from a mile away. "Just as all too many homo sapiens are not people at all. Those who torture and murder for their own gain, those who order the destruction of others for their own profit, are less human than any hydrocarbon combination of opportunistic viruses."  
  
"I remember the lectures from the first time I met you." Clark shook his head, lazy and bemused and reflective, wandering back down memory lane with no regard whatsoever for the radically alien appearance of his companion. "John Jones and Jonathan Kent, the masters of platitudes. Pete still calls you the 'Jon and John' show."  
  
"True, both of us tend to lecture rather than entertain. Neither of us has John Stewart's gift for biting satire. Though I do have a few centuries more experience."  
  
Clark groaned. "At least dad didn't name me John. If mom hadn't beaten him to it, I bet he would have. Johnny Kent. Agh." His mind wandered, and he ate another handful of grass. He'd done that since he was three, since he'd seen the cows doing it, and since it never bothered his stomach (except for that one patch where a meteor had plowed in), saw no reason to stop. "I wonder how J.J. Kennedy managed it. John Junior. Having so much expected of him and all, just because of his name and family. Kind of like Lex, I guess. Lex blew a gasket when J.J. was murdered. They'd never done more than exchange notes, and Lex was already planning to establish a new political dynasty between the two of them."  
  
The Martian Manhunter raised a hairless eyebrow. "Murdered? The plane crash?"  
  
"Well, duh." Clark threw away the rest of his handful of grass in disgust. "Lex dealt with the NTSB after his own plane was sabotaged. They knew exactly what to look for."  
  
"And the full reports were never made public," J'onn prompted.  
  
"Which means that somebody with at least as much money and power as even the Luthors was seriously either blackmailing, or threatening, anyone who tried to go public. Dammit." Clark scowled at the sky. "I wish I could do something about things like that. With all these powers...." His parents had always used the careful euphemism "abilities," but Clark had had it brutally differentiated to him in college that "abilities" meant things like being good at math, or good on the trampoline. Being able to fly, and concentrate energy through your eyes, and punch holes in steel-reinforced walls, were not "abilities." They were inhuman differences, something no one else on Earth could do, no matter how hard they worked at it.  
  
Well, that not many other people on Earth could do, he amended wryly, remembering his companion. J'onn was almost as strong and fast as he was, and much better at flying, and nearly as invulnerable. Even those darn green rocks didn't bother him. Oddly, open flame did, but Clark figured that was J'onn's own trade-off and none of his business. Plus, the man from Mars could read minds. Now there was a power. He grinned at the Martian, guessing that his surface thoughts were being shared anyway. Then he sobered, remembering his train of thought. "With all these powers, don't you sometimes wonder if we shouldn't be doing more?"  
  
J'onn looked away for a moment, reserved. Since there was no one threatening them with exposure for miles around, he let himself stay in his home configuration, because it might help the young man from the red star and destroyed planet come to an important decision.  
  
"Yes, Clark, I think we should be. Not just because we can, but because it is our heritage, our responsibility -- yours and mine both -- to do the best we can, in order to honor those we were forced to leave behind."  
  
Ow. That hurt. Clark winced at the reminder that he was not the only sole survivor, the only one who had lost everything of his home and world. J'onn had had a wife and child, both dead now. Clark at least till had his parents and most of the friends he had grown up with. J'onn had nothing but work associates, with whom he dared share nothing of his real nature.  
  
"How?" His staring at the sky was just short of heat vision. "How do we do what we need to do, without giving ourselves away? How do we even get close to doing everything that needs to be done, that we can do, when there's so much of it?"  
  
"As for the latter," J'onn said with a low chuckle, "You'll need to improve your sentence structure before you become a journalist." Clark snorted. His major so far had been mostly out of not knowing what else to do. "We cannot do everything, Clark. We must learn to choose our battles wisely. Your friendship with Alexander should have taught you that."  
  
Clark turned over again and close his eyes. Lex. Too many secrets between them. Too many hidden threats. "I wish I could trust Lex with all of it," he muttered. "He has a lot of training -- no, he has an absolute gift -- for knowing exactly what needs to be done."  
  
"Yes, he does. And a core of terrible unfeeling ruthlessness in him that allows him to do exactly what needs to be done, without conscience. When you or I are faced with a choice, we base it on a very different set of criteria than does the heir to such vast wealth and power."  
  
"Like we don't have power. Or couldn't have all the money we wanted."  
  
"Precisely, Kal-El. What we are is within us, and no one can take it away, except by killing us. What Alexander has is something he must fight for every hour of every day, and it can be taken away by the most unforeseen of circumstances. Have you met Bruce Wayne?"  
  
"Once. He's the phoniest man I ever met. Feels like shaking hands with a computer. Or a politician. He wouldn't tell you the time of day unless he'd get something out of it."  
  
J'onn J'onzz kept from laughing only because he was a very good actor. "That's exactly how most people feel about Alexander. You only look at him differently because you've been his casual friend, without having to deal with what he has to do to keep his money and power."  
  
"Lex ISN'T like that," Clark argued, but even as he said it, he was pretty sure he was losing the argument. The Martian telepath's next words cut straight to the bone.  
  
"Then why have you never told him even a little bit about yourself? You don't think he can be trusted with, for example, the idea that you're even just a little stronger and faster than the human norm? Or that you'd rather he not keep that green rock statue in his library?"  
  
Clark scowled again. He'd had a hell of a time coming up with ridiculous lies about why he didn't borrow books anymore, when he used to be a regular book hound. Lex had probably put it there just to see what would happen. Both of the Luthor men had seen him turn green, in more ways than one, and on more than one occasion, in the presence of the awful rocks. Lex would hardly have commissioned a meteorite sculpture by accident.  
  
J'onn was right. Why hadn't he just told Lex that the artistically-carved thirty-pound chunk of meteorite was something he had a problem with being around, as if he were just another Smallville mutant? Because of a lifelong habit of secrecy and misdirection?   
  
Or fear?  
  
Fear of what? Fear of Lex?  
  
Clark wasn't afraid of Bruce Wayne. He didn't like him, but if Bruce had pulled a piece of kryptonite on him (and where had THAT thought come from? Playboy Wayne knew as much about kryptonite as Clark did about high finance), Clark would have just bitch-slapped him. But yes, Clark was afraid of what his second-best friend would do with the knowledge that he could knock down his big farm-boy buddy with a common meteor shard. After all, Pete did know, and had used that knowledge more than once, and he wasn't afraid of Pete.  
  
Clark was afraid of Lex. He sighed. Thank you so much, Manhunter. I really didn't need such a pointed "know thyself" lesson in mistrust today. If ever.  
  
"Yes, you did," J'onn said calmly, rubbing Clark's nose in the telepathy. "Because you're looking at a crossroads here, Clark. You'll be twenty-one soon. You're already legally an adult, able to vote. And to be sent to war, may all the gods of Mars forbid. But the time is coming --" Clark blanched at that unintentional reminder of his destroyed spaceship's attempt at programming him, until the Martian held up a hand and gave a small shake of the head, smiling to put the words into perspective. "The time is near when you'll have to choose your life's course. For yourself. I confess I did not come here because I like the taste of grass."  
  
Clark searched for a stall on further forced introspection, discovering that he'd lost the taste for grass himself. "What did you do when you turned twenty-one?"  
  
J'onn refrained from something like hooting. "Martians did not measure the age of majority by the number of revolutions around the sun, though by that standard I would have been around thirty of your years. We were tested by the senior telepaths for our maturity, and put through a series of what you might call aptitude questions. My mother was a Manhunter, and I qualified. My brother...." He fell silent. Clark looked at him questioningly, but J'onn kept his eyes aimed at the horizon. It would be another decade before Kal-El learned of the J'onzz brother who destroyed the entire race with his greed and anger and treason.  
  
"What I did when I became of legal age, as you would say," J'onn went on with the calm of someone who has had far too much practice at control, "was to become a law enforcer. It is the most honorable and most necessary profession of any civilization, any society, no matter how often it is abused." He touched the red cross and gold disks that were his uniform. "Laws can be slippery things, or useless ones. Laws can often be evil themselves. But no society, from ants to Kryptonians, can exist without a common agreement on acceptable behavior from all its members. Thou shalt not steal. Though shalt not murder. Thou shalt accord honor to those who have earned it. The commandments are the same in any language, on any planet."  
  
Honor they mother and father, Clark thought. The parents who had given him up to save his life. The parents who had taken him in at the risk of everything in their lives. Dammit. Was his heat vision going out of control again? He scrubbed at his burning eyes.  
  
"I kind of like that idea. But I can't exactly join the police academy. Or the military. The drug test is likely to come out a little unusual."  
  
"Hm. Well, if it comes to that, there are always ways to change records. The CIA does it all the time. But the real question is, is that what you want to do? Or would that be limiting yourself?" The Manhunter rolled over to face him and morphed back into a human shape that Clark did not, for a moment, recognize. "Ask not what your country can do for you...."  
  
"Oh, man!" Clark stared at him. "Wow. Did you ever meet him?"  
  
"Several times. But always in disguise. I worked on the space program, of course. For purely selfish reasons. Until it became evident that your people -- sorry, Earth's people -- were not going to send a crewed flight to Mars any time soon."  
  
Clark fell onto his back in snorts of laughter. YOUR people. Compared to Krypton, Mars was right next door, planetarily speaking. No way could the Manhunter have said that by accident. Especially not wearing the face he was affecting right now.  
  
So why HAD he said it? There was a hidden message there, somewhere, Clark knew.  
  
That thought allowed him to subside to random giggles, though the twisted grin on the famous face threatened to send him off again. "I don't," hiccup, "Think I would qualify as an astronaut, either. Unless they put a journalist in space. Or a, well," normally the thought would have bothered him, but it was impossible to be somber with J'onn's eyes twinkling at him out of JFK's visage, "guinea pig. I suppose I could volunteer for experiments."  
  
"And of what use would that be? The idea is to open up the solar system, and ultimately the universe, to everyone. Bad enough that they had to start with people of almost superhuman physical and mental conditioning just to get into low orbit. Even today, the criteria for being able to go into space at all eliminates more than 99 percent of even the best and brightest. Why design a spacecraft or program that only a test subject like you or I could survive?"  
  
"Oh. Right." Darnit, he really was going to have to get over this complex one of these days. It was like having a box around his mind, that he couldn't think past.  
  
"But you have touched on the question, Kal." J'onn let the human guise slip. "You have much to offer, yet much to lose. If you reveal yourself to the world, you will never have a normal life again. If you operate only in secret, doing what you can without risk of exposure, you only limit yourself, since you still will not have a normal life. Because, like all those who have been chosen for greatness, you cannot be a 'normal human' and remain true to yourself."  
  
"Tell me about it," Clark muttered in exasperation, throwing his arm over his eyes.  
  
"Hm. Clark, go talk to some of the survivors of concentration camps, or POWs from Viet Nam, and get back to me on the advantages of being normal."  
  
Ouch. Clark wondered if maybe he'd spent too much time around Lana. Self-pity was highly over-rated as a form of entertainment, even if J'onn would have let him get away with it, and the odds against the old battle-scarred Martian allowing that were slim.  
  
"You have spent some time with Baron John's Specials. Do you know why they keep themselves so secret?"  
  
Oboy, the Jon and J'onn AND John show. He wondered what Comedy Central would have done with the whole scenario. "Because they don't want to be seen as freaks."  
  
"Kal-El! For shame. They make no secret of the abilities among one another, whether they have inhuman talents or extraordinary human specialties. Champion athletes or scientists or statesmen or chess players are not "freaks." Try again."  
  
Clark had not anticipated, when his old friend John Jones had invited him to an afternoon out, that he was going to get psychologically beat up. Again. This must be what boxers felt like going into the fourth round. "Uh, what I meant was, because they value their privacy."  
  
"Better, but remember who is the telepath here. Evasions will get you nowhere."  
  
"Well, then, why? It's not like anything can hurt Nicole, and as far as I can tell, nothing can even slow her down except maybe you or me. And Lake -- " Better not even go there. Clark had been given access to the complete files on Lake Anson's history, but cautioned not to eat breakfast first. After three pages, he wished he had been told not to eat dinner the night before, either. "Most of them aren't hiding because they're afraid, anyway."  
  
The shapeshifter lay back, fingers laced behind his head. "No, of course not. Any more than scientists or artists hide their talents out of fear. Come, Kal-El, you may be the strongest person on the planet, but would you really care to try to match wits with Stephen Hawking or Virgil Swann? Or inventive capability against Bill Gates or Lex? It isn't about hiding differences simply because you have differences. Keep going."  
  
"If I'd known this was going to be a test, I'd've brought a pencil," Clark grumbled. Still, he was pretty sure that the Manhunter was leading him to something, and prodding him to keep up. "Most of the work they do is, well, undercover. Behind the scenes. They couldn't do that if they were known. If their abilities were known. So they have to keep secrets so they can be effective. Like the CIA." Clark's face twisted in distaste. "Though I'd much rather work for John and Wynter than the CIA. Special Operations may be lying to the whole world too, but they're doing it for the good of everyone instead of just protecting a few select asses."  
  
J'onn considered Clark for a very long minute. The boy brought up by farmers had discovered that this complex planet could trip up even him with its secrets and lies.  
  
Journalism was a good choice for him after all. He would be seeing first hand how the power of the mass media could be used to inform, or abused to deceive and control.  
  
"If you decided to work for Baron John, would you obey his orders without question? Would you do things that you weren't sure were right, trusting him to determine the outcome?"  
  
Clark thought about that for a full second at super-speed. He frowned. "No."  
  
"If you strike out on your own, will you trust yourself to always make the right decision, and be prepared to live with the consequences when you turn out to be wrong in the long run?"  
  
Crap. "No, I don't believe I'll always be right. But yes, I'll always take the responsibility." His voice, hesitant at first, got firmer as he said it. "Yes."  
  
"Would you rather work behind the scenes, be a puppet master in the shadows, like the Specials, or a very public figure with no personal life, like Warrior Angel or Green Lantern?"  
  
Clark winced. "Isn't there any way to do both? J'onn, just because I'm a superhuman alien, I'm still Clark Kent. I still like fresh corn and hanging out with the guys. It kills me to see all the things I could be doing and haven't. There's so much, so horribly much. But never to just sit around and shoot the breeze with friends again?" He bit his lip, trying to explain what he was feeling without making an ass of himself in front of a man (well, Martian) who had lost even more than he had. "I grew up on this planet. I don't know if I can give that up. If I tried, I might not ever feel like I even sort of belong here, or anywhere else either. Ever."  
  
J'onn, a powerful telepath with many long years of training, knew exactly what he was saying, and what the much younger man was trying not to say. If he lost his connection to his adopted species, he might as well be completely clinically insane. He would certainly be unable to empathize with humans if he did not have to act like one on a regular basis.   
  
J'onn had been saved from that all-too-easy trap of socio-pathological insanity only because of his telepathic talent. Some of the Specials -- Lake and Nicole, in particular, for whom he held enormous respect, but of whom he was thoroughly terrified, because of what they could do if they ever just happened to want to, because they had no real connection to humanity which might restrain them -- had not been so, if you could use the word, lucky.  
  
Clark was afraid that Kal-El, without Clark, would be as psychopathic, and as dangerous.  
  
And Clark, instinctively, though having had only basic psychology courses, was right.  
  
"Actually, there is a way," J'onn said, as casually as he could. "I do it. So does the Lantern, and a few of the others who lead more than one life, in our own myriad ways." He slid back into a human form, a form Clark had never seen before. An unremarkable caucasian man, wearing a rumpled suit and a cynical expression. "It is the most difficult choice, to be two separate people, but it is also the most rewarding. Especially if the separate identities can each do something for the world, solely by virtue of position, that the other cannot."   
  
He dug in a pocket, where his Manhunter's shield had been carefully crafted to double as his other badge, and held it out with one hand while extending the other as if to introduce himself for the first time. "Detective John Jones, Denver police department."  
  
Clark shouted a laugh. "You have a secret identity? As a policeman?"  
  
"I'm on the bowling team, too."  
  
Clark doubled over, holding his stomach against the guffaws, burying his face in the grass to keep from making too much noise.  
  
"Clark Kent can be, oh, say, a journalist. Or a world explorer like Jacques Cousteau. Or a consultant for an international industry. The man behind the mask can be the Warrior Angel, the Green Lantern." His eyes took on an evil glint. "Or you could go without a mask in public, and wear your disguise in your private life, as I do, and Wonder Woman does."  
  
Clark's eyes got wide, and he silently cursed his suddenly-tight jeans. "You know WONDER WOMAN?"  
  
"For many years now. I may be the only male to have ever set foot on Themiscyria."  
  
"Agh. That does it. I'll wear a wig and Marx glasses and bozo nose as Clark Kent, if I can meet Wonder Woman in public without one of those ridiculous Halloween masks." He shook his head. "But there's no way I could make myself wear a costume like that."  
  
#You cheat, J'onn.# The telepathic message rammed into his brain with the force of a trained psi. Lake wasn't a telepath, but her mind-fire was strong enough to beat his shields.  
  
#Pay up,# he retorted, a little dizzy from the contact, trying to keep focused on Clark.  
  
"I don't think the bozo nose will be necessary, or the low-cut costume," he said mildly. "But if Clark," damnit, he hated to keep subjecting the kid to his divided nature, but it couldn't be helped, "Is going to separate himself from his public persona as Kal-El, then you probably need to spend some time out of contact with those who know you only as Clark."  
  
He had expected Clark to object to that, but instead, Clark looked thoughtful. "You know, I've actually been thinking about that. Lake and Nicole once mentioned the idea of taking off and seeing the world, getting some wider experience. After two years of college, I see more of what they mean. You think their offer is still open?"  
  
And what could have prompted him to come up with that thought right now? As far as J'onn J'onzz, the best telepath in the solar system, could tell, Kal-El had less psi ability than a newborn kitten. Yet something had prompted a male just past teenager-hood to transfer his thoughts from Princess Diana to the deadly subversive Specials. "I'm certain it would be."  
  
(# -- J'onn, if you tell him we're listening in, Nicole promises to discuss it with you -- #)  
  
J'onn fought to keep from flinching at Lake's mental override, knowing that Clark would see his reaction and wonder about it. Better Nicole "discussing" it with him than Lake, J'onn thought, hoping his shields held against THAT thought. "They remain -- interested in you."   
  
Clark made a face. "What was that you said about being the most powerful person on Earth? Phooey. Just once, I'd like to think someone was "interested" in me for something other than all the alien powers." He winced. "Nothing personal, J'onn."  
  
"Your friend Nicole would not take it personally, I believe," he said carefully. Obviously John's people had planted a bug on him, or on Clark, but trying to turn it off would only bring them there in person, and he was pretty sure Nicole could still beat hell out of both of them -- the laboratory creation was also a trained fighter and completely invulnerable, after all, while the two superhuman aliens had never bothered to rely on any more than their innate strength.  
  
Clark gave a short laugh. "No, probably not. Nikki would just punch my lights out. She puts herself through experiments for the fun of it. Then she spends the other half her time in places that would make me want to curl up and die from not being able to help. Those kids in Iraq.... Sympathy is not something she gives away." He shook his head, trying not to think about it. "You should have seen the weight-lifting contest we had. And the x-ray vision scavenger hunt. I had a headache all day, and that's not even counting the rock I missed."  
  
John Jones slipped back to J'onn J'onzz. "Interesting. I would like to. If I may...?"  
  
Clark shrugged. "You mean you didn't pick it up already?"  
  
"You don't look in women's restrooms, do you? Or at their underwear?"  
  
"Agh. Point taken. Go ahead." Clark flopped back and closed his eyes.  
  
"It doesn't usually hurt," J'onn offered. "You don't have to tense up like that."  
  
"It's just a weird thought." Clark said distantly, eyes still closed. "Ryan couldn't read me. I thought maybe my skull was too thick or something. But I'm wide open to you."  
  
"Who told you that? Your cellular and neuronic structure is such that you are quite resistant to mental control, and difficult to scan. But I am fairly skilled in the matter."  
  
"Lake said that too." Clark's voice sounded as if he were drifting off to sleep.  
  
"Lake is not a telepath." (#Lake, what are you doing to him? Stop it!#)  
  
"Lake's a psycho...." Clark yawned, and took a slow breath, and let it out in a snore.  
  
# -- I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, and believe that he was going to say 'psycho-telekinetic',# Lake forced into his mind, a precisely-focused blast.  
  
#Why did you put him to sleep? And where are you anyway?#  
  
#I slowed his mind's cycles-per-second rate so you could get past his defenses. Without kryptonite poisoning, his mental barriers are as automatically defensive as his physical ones. He's from a red sun, J'onn. You're out of your league against Kal-El at full strength.#  
  
#And you're not? You were born on this planet. To human parents.#  
  
# -- True. You are far more powerful than I am, and far more experienced. And though his psi capability is too low to be measured, Kal-El is stronger at the core than both of us. Under normal circumstances. Which I hope, as much as you do, does not change again. -- #  
  
The green Martian paled. All of them had hoped that Lake did not remember the time she had gone inhumanly out of control, accessing the full power of the forces of the universe, drunk on the ease of gravity-warping destruction. Apparently, it had been a futile hope.   
  
And if the non-telepath could force her thought-projection communications past his trained shields even now, it was unlikely he could probe her in return, much less erase or redirect any of her memories. #Do you want Kal, or don't you?#  
  
# -- That,# she sent back sternly, # -- is HIS choice now.#  
  
J'onn conceded the point by wiping a barricade over his surface contact with Lake, and turning his attention to the peacefully sleeping Kryptonian. #Kal-El? Clark?#  
  
Clark mumbled but did not otherwise stir. J'onn braced himself and submerged his awareness into another mind.  
  
He had done this a thousand times with humans. A million times with his own people. Never before with another who was the last survivor of another alien species.  
  
#Think of Nicole,# he prompted Clark carefully. #Contests. The fun ones.#  
  
The images flowed. Clark in workout clothing -- in his Kal-El persona, J'onn recognized, from the grim expression on his face -- fingers twined hard into Nicole's fingers, hazel blue eyes locked on her pure black ones, her hard grin a startling contrast from the humorless Kryptonian's stance and stare as they fought to twist the other's arms.   
  
Lake stood by, her physically-human fragile form and pale eyes a complete lie, as she watched impassively with her arms crossed, ready to disable either of them if they got carried away and caused too much damage to the heavily reinforced room that was being monitored from ten thousand sensors. It said something far beyond what J'onn wanted to know that she wasn't concerned for her own personal safety in the presence of those two.  
  
Lake had tasted the power of a god, and been tempted to let it keep her. And destroy her. J'onn used all his long lifetime's training to keep from seeing, feeling, inside Lake again.  
  
Nicole threw Clark with a simple side twist, laughing when he came indignantly charging back, flipped him again. Caught him by wrist and neck and spun him upside down into the wall. Lake managed to protect a few of the sensors with a psycho-telekinetic block.   
  
Clark had been terrified for more than a decade of the thought of being locked up in a laboratory and experimented on. The fact that he was being put through exactly that did not even seem to occur to him. He -- Clark and Kal-El both -- was too intent on the contest.  
  
#You're still stronger than he is,# he commented to Nicole, certain she was in the loop.  
  
#For now, at least,# Nicole came back matter-of-factly, at ease on the telepathic level, though she had no more psi talent than Clark. #But not for long, I suspect. I've reached my design limits. He hasn't. Assuming he even has any. He's not even full grown yet, J'onn.#  
  
#And his strength is not the only thing we were testing,# Lake cooly redirected them.  
  
There were whistles and hoots of appreciation from the sensor team when he pushed his heat vision to full power, cutting a major melted spot into a half ton of gamma-titanium aluminide. Much high-fiving and exchanging of bets. Clark was sitting on the ground, dizzy from the effort. Nicole kicked him lightly and shoved a bottle of water into his hand. "You know what you just did was impossible, don't you?" she said, squatting beside him.  
  
"Yeah, whatever," Clark murmured. Impossible had ceased to have a meaning for him a long time ago. His impossible friends had simply shown him there were more impossible things than he had ever imagined. Incredible things. Things to look forward to trying.  
  
That was his new way of looking at it, he realized. The tests weren't "tests," so much as they were a chance to finally let himself go, and not have to worry about hurting anyone.  
  
The x-ray vision scavenger hunt had taught him an awful lot about what to look for. Nicole's full-spectrum sensors could see through even lead, to a certain extent, and most of the trans-uranic elements as well. Clark hadn't even known how to look for the lanthanide and actinide series. His desultory science classes, as compared to those in an engineering student's curriculum, had not taught him the difference between weight and density at the atomic level.  
  
He also received several severe lectures on the need for being able to look for things that could, after all, be deadly to him, and a brutally practical lesson at it. On the second run, each of the tiny expensive samples of metal had been folded around a chip of kryptonite. Most of them blocked the radiation pretty well, but he still found them all much more quickly with such a pointed incentive, even the one buried in the abandoned missile silo.   
  
Though Nicole had to carry him vomiting and shivering from the one he had tried to retrieve from the underground swimming pool filter, where she had hidden a piece squished inside a ball of bismuth. The heavy crystalline metal absorbed just enough so that he didn't feel it until he was too close. Then he was too weak to get back out. He had been playfully flaunting his speed, and was hours ahead of Nicole. She was polite enough not to rebuke him for that childish stupidity when she finally found him, barely conscious enough to moan.  
  
#The FUN ones,# J'onn prompted.  
  
#It was -- learning.# Somewhere in his dreams, Clark uneasily admitted that the experiments, even the pain, were necessary to him -- not just something that he had to be subjected to, but something he had to actively participate in, to push himself to do. To learn more about himself. To begin to know, not just his limits, but who and what he was.  
  
#That sounds all too much like something you told him, Lake,# J'onn said darkly.  
  
#And your point is?# was the icy response from the murderous psycho-telekinetic.  
  
#Clark / Kal-El is not yours to experiment on,# J'onn returned sharply. #The whole point was to see him grow into his gifts, undamaged. Not to give him more complexes. He is still very young and innocent, for all the terrible things that he has already been put through.#  
  
#You're the one who brought up Wonder Woman,# Nicole interjected sardonically, in an all-too-obvious attempt to diffuse a conflict that could have no happy endings.  
  
#Point taken.# He sharpened his telepathic probe again, delicately. #What else, Kal-El? You're supposed to be thinking of things you enjoy.#  
  
The speed tests had left him winded. Running to Metropolis was one thing. Running to Alaska involved a whole different level of concentration, and a hell of a lot more calories. He got a certain amount of amusement when Wynter declared him too fast for human reflexes on a stopwatch, and rigged a light-beam trigger for the timer. He also ate eleven large pizzas.  
  
After all, it wasn't being locked up in a government lab and studied like an animal when the government scientist asked you if you wanted extra cheese on the pizza, was it?  
  
He had personally insisted on donating samples for blood tests, and argued with the entire science and medical team for half an hour about the various possible benefits, gaining their reluctant capitulation only when he threatened to do it himself and started for the lab.   
  
It astonished him how careful and protective the scientists were of him. He was not so powerful that they could not have stopped him, considering the collective resources they had available. But he was used to saving other people, not to being safeguarded himself.  
  
It was strange to have friends that he didn't have to always shelter and look out for....  
  
Nicole had held his hand tightly as the green needle slid in, and he had met her worried gaze calmly, even reassuringly -- more of him was Clark, this time, than Kal-El -- with only a slight unevenness in his breathing, and the sheen of sweat on his pale skin, betraying the pain.  
  
The flying trials were hideously embarrassing. Like the vision things, it seemed to cut in and out for awhile. One minute he was racing hawks among the clouds, shouting with the pure joy of it. The next he was showing off to his parents, and face-planting in the cornfield.  
  
Jonathan and Martha were encouraging, supportive, polite. No one who was not a telepath would have known about them collapsing in gales of laughter after Clark had gone grumpily off to beat Lex at pool for a few hours to work off steam.  
  
J'onn took several slow deep breaths to steady himself. Earth's high-oxygen air could be intoxicating to a Martian. Or poisonous. If that was Clark's idea of things he enjoyed....  
  
#-- It makes him feel human, J'onn. Normal. Vulnerable. -- # The thought came from Lake and Nicole simultaneously. The Manhunter suppressed a shudder. It wasn't just the force of their combined power, it was the way they reflected off each other, two minds from opposite ends of the spectrum working so closely together. To face those two united on the psychic level would have sent Dante screaming into his own hells for refuge. Thank all the gods ever invented by any of their various species that neither could follow his thoughts.  
  
Beating Lex at pool had become far too easy. It was frustrating. Clark mumbled and frowned and twisted in his enforced sleep. He wanted Lex as a friend. Lex had all the best possible qualities for a friend of a superhuman. He was smart. He was powerful in his own right. He was experienced and capable and resourceful. He wasn't easy to rattle.  
  
He couldn't be trusted. In his own way, he lied far more than Clark did.  
  
He had done some very good things. He had also done some very, very bad things.  
  
J'onn shuddered again, having touched the young megalomaniac's mind himself, and knowing far more than Clark about just how cold Alexander could be in pursuit of winning. Granted, he would never come anywhere near being a shadow of Lake, but they moved in different worlds, and the dangers they presented were entirely different.  
  
Lake, at least, would never be a danger to Clark, because Clark was no threat to her. Lake, at least under "normal circumstances," had no trace of ambition to be any more than what she already was, or do anything more than what she could already do. To Lake, Clark was nothing but a potential, a power she could ally herself with, or shrug and ignore.  
  
To Lex, Clark was a challenge, the other pole of his own personal magnet, power matched against power, to be either best friend or worst enemy, but nothing in between.  
  
Lex had done good things. He wanted to do great things. Lex had also done very bad things. The depths to which "bad" could go.... J'onn wished that somewhere in his very long life, there had been even one case of justifiably eliminating a potential threat just because the potential to be very, very, horrifically bad was there. He suspected that Alexander Luthor could, in his own way, be as dangerous as Lake out of control, and just as difficult to stop.  
  
And in the end, it had been Lake who stopped herself. He did not believe that Lex, faced with the same temptation, would make the same choice.   
  
If Clark ever stood in the way of something Lex truly wanted, J'onn had no illusions as to what Luthor would choose. And on some level, though he would deny it, Clark knew that too.  
  
#Which would you choose, Clark?# He prompted gently. #Which would you choose, Kal-El? What is most important to you? What is it that you most want to do?#  
  
#To help.# Clark sighed sleepily, and J'onn felt it in that moment -- the integration of Clark and Kal-El, the two so-different heritages, finding, and agreeing, on a common goal.   
  
Their twinned desire, nature and nurture, was not to rule, but to take responsibility. To protect those who were weaker, to keep the people who were "theirs" from suffering. And the reluctant wish on one side, and demand on the other, not to have to hide, could be split down the middle, and shared between the two, unifying them. Not two halves becoming a whole, so much as two whole beings becoming one, together so much greater than the sum of their parts.   
  
J'onn smiled. He had hoped to simply talk things out with Clark, see if he could help him through the inevitable questions of the end of sophomore year. The Special's intent to recruit him for more training was only one more goad. J'onn himself thought it would be a crime to hide the young man's light, his openness and charm and natural charisma -- his instinctive ability to lead -- in the undercover world. And J'onn was, after all, a lawgiver.  
  
Clark blinked up at him, smiling sleepily. "Did I doze off? Sorry about that."  
  
"Nothing to be sorry about," J'onn reassured him. "It's a perfect day for it. What could be more natural than two old friends out relaxing for the afternoon?" And going through a mind-probe session. "I should have brought a picnic basket."  
  
Clark snorted a little. "Yep, perfectly natural for two aliens to be sitting out on a grassy knoll as if we were on an end-of-the-school-year picnic. Please don't invite me to go bowling with you. I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face for two minutes. And you'd probably say something about Wonder Woman and I'd crush a bowling ball."  
  
"The hardest thing to learn, and do, when leading two separate lives, is to remember what you can and cannot say around other people. Detective Jones does not even know the Martian Manhunter, though curiously, he does know some of the Manhunter's friends. Like Diana -- Wonder Woman." J'onn's lips quirked. "Granted, being telepathic helps me remember what the people around me expect me to know, but it also means a very tight control on just exactly how far I am allowed to read. You will have to find your own way of coping with that relationship between Clark and Kal-El, if that is the life you choose to live."  
  
Clark made a face. "Wonderful. Like being in school for the rest of your life. And somehow I can't see people calling me "Kal-El" in public all the time. It sounds like a name brand for a refrigerator or something."  
  
This time, J'onn allowed himself to laugh. "Everyone is in school for the rest of their lives, Clark. But you have a point about having a line of appliances named after you."  
  
"Agh! More platitudes. Where do I even start, J'onn? This is such a big world.... Back in Smallville, I thought Metropolis was the center of the universe. Now I realize I've never even been to Texas, much less anywhere in Europe. And I don't even know how many countries there are in Asia. I'd probably get lost inside a building in Tokyo."  
  
"You start by taking whatever steps you feel comfortable with. You're a fast learner, and you are not afraid, any more, to try new things." The Martian's voice was encouraging, but there was a frown on his hairless heavy brow. "But it does you no good to try something you're not ready to handle. The flying lessons should have taught you that."   
  
Clark tried to glare at him for that reminder. J'onn shook his head slightly and relaxed back into a slight smile. "Step by step, my young friend. You might start by cleaning out and packing up your dorm room. That should take at least a month, even at your speed."  
  
The attempted glare collapsed into grass-pounding laughter. "Okay, that's cheating! Aliens aren't supposed to spy on college student rooms!"  
  
"Who needs to spy? I'm a detective. I've been in college dorm rooms before. Including ones on my own planet. There's no reason to believe that yours would be any different just because you're from a different solar system."  
  
The sheer casualness of it all tore Clark between giggles and the seriousness of the realities they were so calmly discussing. As if it were perfectly ordinary to be from another planet. He wondered how other people would take it, if and when that particular information became public. Would they fear him for being unlike them? Or would they embrace him for what he was trying to do, and see the actions, rather than the alien?  
  
Pete had finally come to terms with it, but Pete had been his friend for most of his life, and he had not been particularly happy about it at first. Though that, he realized, might have more to do with the lies he had kept between them than the fact of the truth itself.  
  
"Do you think the Specials would still be willing to help, if I don't agree to work for them?" Clark bit his lip. "I'm not sure I'm ready to take off and see the world on my own yet. But I can't lie to them, even if I wanted to. I just -- I can't live that kind of life, cut off from the rest of the world, never really being part of it. I'm ... J'onn, I'm tired of hiding."  
  
"I daresay they will understand that. And you are, after all, old enough to make your own decisions." J'onn gestured over his shoulder. "Why don't you ask them?"  
  
Clark glanced up, startled, to see that they, or at least he, had been snuck up on. He winced. Yet another lesson. Don't get so involved in yourself that you forget to pay attention to what's going on around you. His dad and his Martian friend no doubt had whole hosts of platitudes about that between them. He hoped Lake and Nicole didn't.  
  
"Hi, guys!" Nicole called. "Somebody told us that you forgot your picnic basket. We brought a replacement. Hope peanut butter sandwiches and tofu salad suits, because I don't think even our stomachs could handle what passes for prepackaged snacks these days."  
  
Clark fell back with a helpless laugh. Nicole's nuclear furnace of a stomach could digest meteor rock, and while J'onn was a vegetarian, it was doubtful that he was susceptible to food poisoning. "You were spying on us!" he accused, offended but still snickering.  
  
"Well, of course," Lake said easily. "We're spies. That's what we do."  
  
That set Clark off again, and even J'onn was smiling, though the look he exchanged with Lake was nothing Clark wanted turned on him any time soon.  
  
Nicole set down the cooler she'd been balancing on her shoulder (and if anyone had been close enough to recognize it as the type with a motor in it, designed to stay in the car since it weighed several hundred pounds, there would have been interesting questions, but J'onn had chosen their picnic site well). "Cold beer and hot soup all in one handy container!" she said happily. "The marvels of modern technology. We need more engineers."  
  
"Second the motion." J'onn caught the beer she tossed to him and raised it solemnly. "To engineers, for the betterment of all -- " he let his eyes go native red again, sliding an amused glance across the group -- "mankind."  
  
"Aye aye," Lake added to the salute, sitting down cross-legged two inches above the grass as she raised her own beer. Clark fought very hard not to splutter his own mouthful.  
  
So this was what J'onn had meant by "your people." That he could, indeed, be what he was, all of what he was, and still belong to humanity. That in fact, in order to belong, he had to put no artificial limits on himself, but to be all of who and what he could be. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country -- or world. Or people.  
  
To honor those who had given everything in order for him to survive, he had to be what he could be. What he should be. Clark raised his beer. "To engineers." He met each of their eyes in turn. "Personhood" was kind of a clumsy word for a toast. "And to all mankind."  
  
The four least human people on Earth drank silently to that, together.  
  
"So, kid," Nicole said lazily, when Clark had finished decimating most of the food and the others had gotten a bite or two each, "You don't think even Little Sky could change your mind about coming to work for us?"  
  
Clark winced. Little Sky's elemental powers of life made her pretty much the personification of sex, when she wanted to be. "Not fair, Nicole."  
  
"Heh. It was worth a try. Not a problem, Clark Kal-El Clueless Kent. I tend to agree with J'onn there, anyway, on a few things. It would be a shame to hide your brightness behind a mask. You could learn a lot from Wonder Woman, anyway."  
  
Oof. "Enough with the low blows, Nikki. I just finished eating. And I think you spiked the beer. I will not be responsible for anything I say that makes no sense."  
  
"That's just stress, brat." She rubbed his head like a kid and then slapped his shoulder, hard enough to get his attention. Lake and J'onn estimated it, interestedly, at around four tons of impact, since he actually went over from where he was braced on his elbows. "Get used to it. You think the past two years were an eye-opener, you're about to learn that this world that you thought couldn't hurt you pulls no punches."  
  
I think I already got that idea, Nikki, Clark didn't say aloud, for trepidation that she would point out just how little an idea he had. It was too nice an afternoon to ruin that way. He hoped his smile made up for his lack of answer, and that it wasn't as weak as it felt.  
  
Lake was leaning back (still hovering just barely noticeably above the ground), hands behind her head, as if searching the sky. "You do know that you can come to us any time you need help, Kal-El. We owe you more than just apologies for all the years we were not there for you. We can't make up for the difficulties and confusion you went through when you were so young. But for what you will likely face in the future, never hesitate to ask for help."  
  
That, at least, he could answer. "Thanks. I appreciate that. I was afraid that...."  
  
"That there would be a price tag? Never, Kal. We did not seek you out just to ask you to work with us. Mostly, we wanted to make sure you knew you had friends. That you did not have to shoulder the weight of the world for. Or lie to. Or hide from."  
  
And so that I wouldn't go crazy from being alone and nearly destroy the planet, the way you did? Clark swallowed that thought, hard. No. She had meant exactly what she said. Her pulse and respiration hadn't changed. She really did mean, just to be friends. "Thanks."  
  
"You're welcome." She rolled over to face him (still not touching the ground), and the smile that lit her face was like a ray of sun through the clouds, a promise that everything would be all right, somehow. "Anytime. Except for helping you clean up your dorm room."  
  
"J'onn! You told!"  
  
"Not me. They're spies, remember?" And J'onn finally lost it himself, throwing back his head in booming laughter. The meeting that he had approached with caution and no small amount of fear had turned into one of the best days of his life.  
  
Clark growled at all of them, eyes glinting. Nicole took that as a challenge, suddenly snapping him up by the arm -- she was nowhere near as fast as Clark, but she moved with a trained economy of motion that it would take Clark years to master -- and hurled him a good hundred feet before he brought the flight reflex under control and slowed himself. "Grr!"  
  
In the meantime, Nicole had run behind J'onn and whispered, "Invisible, fast!"  
  
"What? I can't...."  
  
"Hurry!" J'onn obliged the odd tone in her voice and altered his malleable structure to the point of transparency. Nicole sat down behind him, grinning. He hadn't had time to try to put any kind of sight-cloak over her, so he wondered what the whole purpose of.... Oh.  
  
Nicole's mind was wide open to her intentions. "Come and get me," she taunted the teenage superhuman. J'onn saw the point of this particular "unplanned" test when Clark charged cooperatively, and unthinkingly. J'onn improvised a kinder improvement on the smack-down Nicole had been planning, and swung his cape over the young man's head, allowing it to become visible again just as it tangled him and covered his eyes. "Hey...!"  
  
Clark went down in a confused crash. Nicole stood over him, arms crossed, and snickered. "What happened to x-ray vision? You should have been able to see J'onn, at some frequency other than human-visible light, never mind through the cape." Clark made an unappreciative sound, trying to get the cape unwound from his neck.  
  
Lake spoke from behind him, her tone the same deadly quiet that he had learned meant that she was in a GOOD mood. It was the slightly-wrong, singsong voice that everyone who knew her had reason to fear -- the being she could become, that cared nothing about humanity.  
  
"Letting your guard down among friends is one thing, Kal-El. Being careless just because you perceive no threat is a good way to get yourself killed. Sooner or later, you will learn that there is always a threat, always something to watch for. Make it sooner."  
  
Lake stood up -- an easy and impossible motion, never once touching the ground -- and offered Clark her hand. The cape unwound itself and took itself back to J'onn, settling on his shoulders. "You have made a choice, Kal-El, and I respect it. But that choice makes you a target, as well. A very visible target. I have already been to too many funerals."   
  
Including, Clark remembered with a stabbing sickness to the gut like a kryptonite knife, funerals for the thousands of those she had killed herself, with her bare mind.  
  
"I will do whatever I have to, no matter how unfair, to not have one of them be yours."  
  
That was a threat that got his attention. Lake was saying that she would risk repeating the awful things she had done, just to protect him. "I'll ... remember that," he said huskily, not trusting his voice further. Then he remembered something else. Lake, Nicole, probably everyone except J'onn and Randal and Cyrus, still wondered if he would ever be able to reconcile his inborn cold Kryptonian nature with the farm boy who had been raised as Clark.  
  
"And Lake," he said as lightly as he could, "When I'm not being Kal-El -- call me Clark."  
  
His answer was that sunrise smile that convinced him that Lake was either truly insanely a multiple personality, or had hidden depths of love and caring that no one else except maybe Nicole, not even the telepaths and empaths, were allowed to suspect.  
  
He thought he might want to get to know that deeply buried persona. He wondered how many other people he would meet would be so contradictory. It would be a good thing to keep in mind, anyway, when he ran across the next meteor mutant, or whatever, who seemed to be terrible and terrifying on the surface, but were still -- people -- somewhere inside.  
  
People. Like J'onn and Nicole and Lake. Like Lex, if he wanted to be. Like himself.  
  
"Clark, then." Quietly, with a nod, a bare acknowledgment. Then Lake toed Nicole, who had been watching that short exchange with the impassivity of Buddha. "Come on, partner." Friend, Clark heard, and it was through neither hyperacute hearing nor any psi talent. "Sunset, and we're back on the clock. We need to go get some more peanut butter, too."  
  
Clark laughed. "Bring mushroom and onion pizzas next time! With extra cheese."  
  
"Duly noted. Come by and talk shop with us after you get your dorm room sterilized. We'll set up a travel itinerary for a few months. You can take it from there if you want."  
  
"I appreciate it. But first ... J'onn, like you said earlier, can I," Clark flushed, "Can you arrange for me to meet Wonder Woman? You know, just to, kind of, see what it's like. To be such a public figure, I mean." Like anyone was in the least fooled by that excuse.  
  
Nicole and Lake exchanged glances and rolled their eyes. "Whatever. Next week, then. Brat," Nicole added. "Count on learning some more boxing techniques the hard way."  
  
The two agents packed up and walked off with a wave, leaving Clark contemplating the sunset of his adopted solar system. Beside him, J'onn was similarly quiet, at least out loud.  
  
# -- Bets on the costume he comes up with, J'onn? -- #  
  
#Probably not a cape, after the trick you pulled, unless he can think of a way to turn it to his advantage. But after he meets Diana ... no, not worth betting on. He likes red and blue anyway. Though he does tend to prefer more, hm, skin coverage. The Kansas upbringing. Not so much modesty as pretending to be affected by the cold.#  
  
# -- Watch him try to copy your gold belt buckle, too. -- #  
  
#Or worse -- Nicole's red underwear.#  
  
# -- It's a radiation-containment bodysuit, not underwear! -- #  
  
#Just so long as he doesn't affect Lake's predilection for light blue puffed sleeves.#  
  
# -- Or Dylana's for white plastic boots. -- #  
  
# -- Please at least try to keep him from putting stars on his pants. -- #  
  
#I am pledged not to interfere,# J'onn broadcast with great, serene, ancient dignity. #Unless he tries to wear plaid spandex.#  
  
Nicole dropped the cooler.  
  
* * * * *  
  
Author's Note: If you enjoyed this story, then go to my intro page, click on my Favorite Authors list, and read every single thing they have written, because in my opinion they are pure diamond. There are some other great fics out there, of course, and I intend no insult by omission (the page would take up half a computer if I recced EVERYbody), but when I say you can't go wrong with these writers, I'm swearing it on a stack of comic books and videotapes. 


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